The fishing secret is gone and so is the bouncing lake Pupae one (that went away even earlier I guess); so no more secret unlockable suit at the end of the level, meanwhile the catacomb secrets should be all unlocked by killing specific enemies - one of them can't be opened at all and is empty, while the Firestorm Generator tomb requires a Gasbag to be killed and he can only randomly appear on Hard/Unreal difficulties.Also yeah on the music department I guess I'm ok with firebr.umx since the level is on the humor side (plus I forgot Tyrannis was actually used for map11). Hopefully you don't forget putting those silence umx in any level that begins without music otherwise the utmenu takes over!

Map 6

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Vandora geometry is sadly an unstable piece of shit. Overall is still the good old easy fun.

Map 7

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Nether.umx is kinda weird considering the music selection in the successive map, massive change in theme.

Map 8

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This level is an ungodly bitch early on as you'll be dealing with waves of enemies coming from both sides as you enter the Terraniux section proper. I'm still unsure how cameras work but apparently only a limited amount of enemies stay spawned, killing those make others appear out of nowhere.Also not sure if this is intended but Freeze Helms are dropped; to be honest it's just a bonus because unlike map 7, Freeze pawns are hardly the main problems here (literally everyone else is stronger!).I was surprised at the constant music changes, was expecting Earthshock to play till the end like always since it has become the music of the level.Finally, the three massive guns being destroyed is an optional thing and I'm sure that isn't intended. Since it's something that was crucial to the level since its early versions, it should be a main objective.I wouldn't say it's the hardest map but the difficulty spike is 20 times higher than anything before it.

Map 9

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Yeah this looks something out of EXU2 Demo2. Obviously one day it'll be upgraded, right now it's just a Hellgun secondary fire simulation level except it's not against Shadows but Mantas and Skaarj. The pit shouldn't kill you for consistence after the map 4's pit now being safe to explore.

Map 10

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Hard but a far cry from Frostclaw. You first experience there how strong the upgraded Demon pawns are and oh boy might as well drop all the G59's enhanced ones (ALMOST all). Though seeing a Demon Krall Elite shooting rockets kinda kills the point of having Warlords.Turns out you can xloc through the exit hole to quickly finish the level but it's already fixed for the next version.

Map 11

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A bit old but still awesome level. The exit of the canyon is fixed for the next version, turns out it wasn't a stone door but a geometry fuckup.On Unreal difficulty I almost felt like the necessity of using the RFPC at rare times, same with the SK6. There are certain cases where there are SO MANY ENEMIES, and your ammo doesn't make up for it (this is mostly due to the constant enemy spawning in the previous level).The Asbestos Suit protects you from the miniorb's fireballs. Turns out the HellGun works against the RockMonster and holy shit is the HellGun really strong. Even against the LavaTitans. Technically a casual player would think the RockMonster and the LavaTitan would be immune to the HellGun because of the creatures' "demonic" nature. The RockMonster has a red demon core, the LavaTitans don't differ that much from ArchDemons at first glance. This is why I get confused every time.In the first part of the level there's a gateway blocked by a black overlay with the hell ring texture on top. It kinda looks shitty, would tell to remove the gateway itself completely.

Doom Arena is saved for last in this post.

Map 14

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Hopefully you'll be able to fix that invisible wall blocking the secret area. Otherwise, still great but perhaps both Shadow levels are in line for an upgrade since they've been the same for years.

Map 15

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Pretty much said everything on discord already. Still the best BI map.Basically right now it's playable but the whole rammstein sequence is broken and you can blaze through it extremely easily, ending up in the next level with shittons of armor and ammo (especially Tachyon) and possibly some PentaPower juice.Still no idea where those two Archdemons at the beginning came from.You might want to put additional Tachyon beams because, at least on Unreal difficulty, you are almost not allowed to mis-use a single Tachyon ammo.

Map 16

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It's really REALLY hard, harder than Frostclaw. It only felt easier because of how the previous map ended and I blazed through almost half of it with 50 tachyon ammo + PentaPower but I have no idea how I would have fared otherwise. ShrapnelMercenaries are way too strong and common - common occurrence is them spawning behind you somewhere, and then kill you or destroy all your armor in less than 10 seconds. Way too many spawns, it's almost like they are infinite and from what I remember the spawned monsters never drop anything. Probably needs more rebalancing, especially how now the Demon pawns are ever stronger than before (I suppose the map has remained the same overall in gameplay otherwise).No bugs found, so the only things that need to change are related to the gameplay at least.

DOOM ARENA (Map 12)

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So yeah after a crapload of minutes I actively ghosted to get the Tachyon and end the map. This one has been always a level that "got in the way", even in the early demos. Might probably because it's the least thing you'd expect from an EXUified Dark Arena but then it's gonna be cliche as fuck having Dark Arena going Hell Arena.

Like I can understand the ridiculous spawns that sometimes happen in other maps (it is what stops BI from being a breeze like how it was before Open Beta) but this level is huuuh. Even G59 had a lot of cryptic shit going on but since it happened in levels where you had to explore every room, it was eventually obvious what you had to do.

Here we have this open ended CA-style level where you can go anywhere you want, with the monsters only spawning after a while. Supposedly the Seraphim is supposed to tell me what to do but beyond the two messages telling me about the demon orbs and to be careful at a certain living bioweapon that will annoy you throughout the course of the level, nothing else pops up. Since you can only receive these messages once (and since the EXU Translator doesn't support past messages unlike Xidia/7B/ONP/Xenome's one) it's definitely a good idea not writing there essential information; the majority of Seraphim's messages seem like all humor funny shit, at least that's the idea they give to players from Shitstorm onward, so it's unexpected that all of a sudden they turn out useful. I believe they act like this in Frostclaw too where they tell you have to blow up the guns, I don't remember too well.They are supposed to contact me later but all they tell me is that the bioweapon has arrived, then silence.

Who's the bioweapon? How can I tell it is the true one? Was it the SuperbCharger? Or a TachyonCharger that is supposed to appear but didn't it for me? After figuring out that a TachyonCharger was supposed to appear I thought it was him the bioweapon because 1. it's the first time you see it in the game and 2. SuperbChargers already appear in Shitstorm, making them not much of a surprise anymore and 3. the TachyonChargers have the tachyon glowing energy in their bodies, it's closer to the description of a creature who melts anything that it touches. Have one type of altered Charger appearing in the level only (regular Chargers don't appear either which is a good choice anyway) because at least the players know that is the bioweapon after they hear the Charger scream.

Figuring out how to dispatch the Charger is another challenge, albeit not that impossible to figure out. The problem is that the map on Unreal difficulty is absolutely FUCKED in terms of enemy presence. If you go outside the fortress you're at least dead, monsters keep appearing from every direction. It's way too over the top figuring out how to contain the SuperbCharger and therefore containing it, while 10+ enemies shoot crapload of laser/fusion projectles. The most annoying offender was the AdvancedSkaarjAssassin I think. Fucker is like a ShrapnelMercenary in terms of unexpected power: these guys have 5k health, somehow weak to laser bolts YET still never fucking die, shoot one wave of ultra fast undodgeable green orbs and you lose tons of armor (or HP) as a result; Skaarj Fiends envy them. There's always one around from minute one, at least only outside which is the reason I never left the arena (and that's where it is easier overall to cage the boss). I think at least getting rid of this fucker from Doom Arena makes the whole thing much more playable; I can't imagine fighting these alongside a Skaarj Fiend boss who has 50k+ (?) HP on Unreal difficulty.

The other thing that has also confused me was the message about a stash of weapons (the Tachyon one) located inside a crate locked by a key card code that you had to find somewhere in the level, possibly spawned randomly like that G59 level in the dark where you had to find a key that could appear in specific places. I thought this was the real objective, not containing the Charger.

The level is both way too hard to survive through and too hard to figure out what the hell you have to do. I'm totally sure any standard player who's gonna get to this level will become frustrated after 10 minutes of just shooting things and losing HP, plus escaping all the time. It's a drastic change from the previous level and what it brings to the table is not clear.

Good thoughts on Map 12, which clearly was a controversial update (at least in your experience). Thanks for the writeup! I'm working on making it clearer what you have to do to beat the level.

The reason I only had messages refer to it as a "bioweapon" is because:

1) Canonically, no one knows what any of these creatures they're facing are actually called; names like Superb Charger and Demon Skaarj Lord are just gaming abstractions.2) It's not a Superb Charger on Easy or Medium, but a Psycho / Ultra Charger (respectively), so lower skill levels aren't subjected to insta-death-on-contact if they make mistakes while trying to deal with the thing.

I agree with you that level design, for any game, should present clear, unwritten cues on what needs to be done to progress. Ideally, if someone doesn't want to read text, or is illiterate or doesn't speak the language, they should still be able to figure out how to proceed. Ideally.

Figuring out how to communicate the intended goal (drop the enemy into a dumpster) non-verbally is tricky, though. I do have some ideas, however!

I think one clue I might do for the bioweapon containment goal is barring access to the map proper until you get a key, and the key is found only in a specific dumpster right by the gate. As soon as you jump or translocate into it, the lid shuts, but not all the way since it has pipes sticking out. You're then able to translocate out of the dumpster. This would establish the idea that those dumpster lids can be closed and aren't just static decorations. From there, it's a bit more reasonable to expect a player to put two and two together and decide to lure the unkillable bioweapon into a dumpster where it will be stuck and unable to pursue you. Sound fair?

The secondary and tertiary goals are a bit trickier. Once you contain the bioweapon, the demon commander charged with destroying you arrives to do so personally since his original plan failed. You have to kill him in order for him to drop his keycard, which then allows you to open the shipping container with the Tachyon Driver. Once you get that, the third goal is to survive the ensuing onslaught and blast open the doors to exit the level.

Expressing this without any written cues is difficult, if not practically impossible. Ideas? I'm not even sure if it's clear to new players that the busted doors ARE the exit, and thus they have to find a way to get through them. Not unless they read the log next to it and figure that out.

If nothing else, I could have broadcast messages appear when you kill the commander telling you that the container is now accessible, and again when you get the 'Driver, saying that you should now be able to blast open the busted doors. Anyone who's played Unreal will know where the original level exit was, but in EXU, that's not a guaranteed progress path, so even veterans could be confused by that without some more guidance. And that still isn't a non-verbal means of establishing the goal, yet it may be the best I can do.

Having the commander drop a keycard you have to pick up seems like a bit of an unnecessarily messy solution as well, so instead I'll just have the shipping container sealed with a soul lock rather than a keycard (i.e. as long as the commander is alive, only he can open it, and thus killing him automatically unlocks the container). I'll add messaging by the container indicating as much.

Now, as for the gameplay...

I'm honestly surprised it gave you so much trouble given what you've put together in G59. The gameplay itself is fairly straightforward: fight in a large combat arena. The objectives may be somewhat complex, but the fighting is not.

Going outside the arena itself never seemed any more dangerous to me than staying inside. Also, there are armor crates -- did you not find those? They have an infinite supply of armor you can use and reuse as often as you like. And enemies have a decent chance of dropping armor, health, and ammo as well, plus the occasional flare. You can survive indefinitely if you are really good at using the environment to your advantage and staying on the move, which was the idea behind this map.

I'll give you that Shrapnel Mercs are pretty mean, but they are easy to kill and have a limited effective range. The fact that you run into so many of them in Telefire just means that you're getting further into the demons' strongholds, where the enemy selection is more optimized for the area they're defending. I never had a huge issue with them in Telefire since they were expected around every corner. They are also much weaker on Easy and Medium (firing fewer projectiles per shot).

Advanced Skaarj Assassins are definitely fuckers, but they are meant to be. They're tough, and they have fast-firing, hard-hitting projectiles. But they're distinct that way -- you always know when one is around because subtlety isn't their thing. They're big, have green eyes, and are mechanical Skaarj with white "blood" (think the fluid in the androids in Alien[s]), which is not a common combination in EXU. They're also very rare. I did make them a bit rarer, though.

I also see your point about Tachyon Chargers seeming like THEY could be the bioweapon in question, so I've made them extremely rare instead (and removed them on Easy and Medium). They're mainly meant to give you a small panic attack if you see one, which is exactly the kind of evil dickery that Unreal difficulty SHOULD be full of, no? If you play on Unreal, you're asking for the toughest resistance available. Expect the unexpected; the game will keep you on your toes.

As for the enemy presence being absolutely fucked, that's kind of the point. I do understand that it was probably pretty hectic dealing with all of them while also trying to figure out how to deal with a Superb Charger, but making you shit your pants is EXACTLY what EXU2 on Unreal should be doing! Had you known what to do with the Superb because of better level design clues (which I'm working on), dealing with the enemies probably wouldn't have seemed so overwhelming. Most of the enemies are pretty weak on their own, so unless you get mobbed, you don't have much to worry about. If you DO get mobbed, just go somewhere else and regroup. Enemies will end up spreading themselves thin just trying to find you, and you can go pick them off and drag the Superb to a dumpster.

That said, I DID reduce the spawn rates for the mechanical enemies that are present while the Superb is loose. Once you bin it, though, the enemy presence multiplies, as do the spawn rates, and none of it slows down from there. I'm not planning to make any adjustments to that, either -- when the biggest threat is secure, you have to focus back on the battle and getting the fuck out of there.

v7.1 should have some pretty sizable map improvements, but don't expect the actual combat to be a lot easier on Unreal difficulty. If you can't handle it, there's always Hard

I'm fairly sure it was those Advanced Assassins the only reason why going outside was prohibitive - it's like the Shrapnel Merc, there's that one creature type who has a massively better kill potential than anyone else around, the catch here being the monster in question having 5000 HP (that HP amount was the mid-to-late game G59 standard, when Clusterfucker/RFPC were to the point of becoming regular weapons) and appearing almost all the time. I wouldn't mind the rest of the level being untouched in terms of difficulty but those guys need to go or need a serious nerf. Skaarj Fiends are supposed to be strongest Skaarj Warrior ground units.

As for the bioweapon thing I wouldn't say the issue was the enemy being defined "bioweapon" exactly. The player will surely figure out it's a strong Charger due to the loud sound clue they hear after a while.Now I didn't know you could face a different type of Charger in lower difficulties but at least I'm assuming only one pops up. I directly played Doom Arena on Unreal difficulty and I had no idea that a secondary Charger for purely player harass would appear alongside the main objective. This was a big source of confusion - you might want to have always only one Charger in every difficulty. For the record the Tachyon one somehow did a better job chasing me around compared to the SuperbCharger, another factor that led me to believe it was the true objective.

The first goal idea seems good enough. It's hard to imagine for a newbie that the dumpster lid is a mover, they'll think it's standard decoration considering all the metal/wooden stuff you find in the level. For the second goal I'd say these three things

The message about the keycard + weapon stash should be put in a more visible spot, maybe alongside the other one inside the arena. The current position is too random, hard to spot, and in a more dangerous area. I only spotted it very late in the level.

A better clue about where the weapon stash is located - it's one of those red crates and I'm sure I saw more than one in the level (there are two in front of the arena entrance). Doubt it's necessary though since if you can climb the top of the arena, that would be likely important.

When the Demon forces come, I'm assuming Seraphim would figure that out and at least alert you that a squad with their commander is coming, through on-screen message. By reading one of the Hellbooks the players should know they'd be looking for a commander who has a keycard. Maybe something should pinpoint the fact that defeating the commander would be a victory for the player and Seraphim I guess.

The third goal I never thought about it that could be an issue too. Like it's pretty weird that you need a weapon like the Tachyon to blast a bunch of wooden doors to begin with, and something like some sort of "HIT HERE" target reticle overlays on the objects is shoddy workaround. Oh, well, Seraphim could be useful again with another on-screen text message, saying something like "blast your way to the exit"

You're referring specifically to this map, right, and not EXU as a whole? In which case yeah, that's true, except the Fiends here are special since they have vastly more HP than usual and come in a squad.

One-off Adv. Skaarj Assassins really are not that hard to deal with. Use cover, use flares, use shit canisters / lasers / successive Hell Gun blasts and they go down pretty quickly. You can also stun the shit out of them! The only thing available that kills Fiends quickly is the Tachyon Driver, and you don't get that until AFTER the captain is dead. The Fiend squad is also a bit more stun-resistant than usual.

The Assassins also only have one attack, whereas the Fiends have multiple different kinds that they will use with some randomization, but also based on combat conditions, making them more effective. Assassins are predictable, while Fiends aren't so much. Assassins rely on pure brute force, and you can easily outdo them at that game with the arsenal you have by that point.

You might want to have always only one Charger in every difficulty.

That's pretty much the route I took, except they can still appear on Hard or Unreal, just not as often as before. They were rare to begin with, though, so it's possible you would never even see a single one in a given playthrough. They are also quite killable, which is a distinct difference from the real objective. When you shoot the real one, you get the invincibility effects which are pretty obvious, and there is messaging telling you (multiple times now) that you can't kill it. Tachyon Chargers are chumps and go down easy against sustained Hell Gun fire, especially if they are on the arena floor and you're on the roof.

A better clue about where the weapon stash is located - it's one of those red crates and I'm sure I saw more than one in the level (there are two in front of the arena entrance).

Yeah, I realized that having multiple red shipping containers made the important one look less significant, so I made the sealed one the ONLY red one. It's also got more obvious hell glyphs all over the locked door now, and you can spot those a mile off once you're on the roof. Should make it pretty clear which crate is important.

When the Demon forces come, I'm assuming Seraphim would figure that out and at least alert you that a squad with their commander is coming, through on-screen message.

Good idea. They congratulate you on containing the charger once you get it in the dumpster, but don't warn you about retaliation. They could drop a hint about seeing dropships on radar heading toward you and that should be pretty clear. Even though the captain and his buddies spawn from a puff of smoke (so to speak) instead of via a landing craft (as does the bioweapon), that should help clarify what's happening.

Like it's pretty weird that you need a weapon like the Tachyon to blast a bunch of wooden doors to begin with

Hah, tell me about it. Trying to justify that in my head was difficult. The best explanation is the doors are enchanted in some way (like most structures in hell), which is the only real reason you can't just obliterate the entire arena with the arsenal you have on hand. It's not like wooden boxes and flimsy metal shipping containers hold up to high explosives in real life. I think I'll rewrite the log by those doors indicating that they aren't your usual wooden slabs, and they gave the engineers trying to excavate them a really hard time.

So turns out the DemonSkaarjLord/DemonKrallElite/SkaarjFiend other attacks are difficulty-based. Had this SkaarjFiend subclass who could only shoot on Medium difficulty the typical pentagrams no matter what was his Skill property, making me think the AI decisions are fully attached to the in-game difficulty (even if the code calls Skills). Any quick way to force them to use other attacks on all difficulties or it's coding change time there too?

EDIT: ok what are the pawns that have multi-attacks, seems like there are more than just those

Skill is set by the GameInfo when the level first loads. Setting it in the defaults probably isn't working since it's most likely being reset right away. If you set the skill to 3.0 in UED, then load it up on Medium difficulty, do an EditActor Class=<pawnclass> and see what the Skill shows as right there ingame. It'll probably be 1.0 then.

So, to fix that, you'd need to force Skill to something else in PostBeginPlay(), which is called after the GameInfo does its thing. That would then enable all attacks on all difficulties. And yeah, you'd need a custom subclass for that.

God damn I just noticed now the ASSSquad actor, seems quite way beyond Unreal's gameplay standards in terms of how advanced it is. Though from what I get this generally works on large areas and it's more suited for CA? None of the BI levels make use of it yet.

Back from holiday! I'll try to finish up v7.1 this week if at all possible. All I need to do at this point is finish up an auxiliary segment in Map 12 (Doom Arena) which is designed to better illustrate the gameplay mechanics required to advance the level, and that is already almost done.

Request for v7.1: can you give all the BI Shadow pawns (Skaarj/Manta/Squid and I guess Sludge Crawler also counts?) an immunity against a unique shadow-related damage? It's for something I have planned, I want to avoid creating vanilla pawn subclasses for just adding this immunity.

Update: v7.1 is still coming very soon; I've just had a few minor setbacks with some changes to Map 12 that required rebuids, then subsequent BSP-error-busting, and I've found some issues with logs in other maps I've corrected (word choice, grammar, typos, etc).

I think I have Map 12 under control now and need to test it, then fix up the messaging in the maps that need it, and then it should be ready!

Overall the general issues I recall having in the ancient version are fixed (on Medium, which I'm pretty sure I played it on then too); I remember running into a lot of little things that added up to major flow issues when together, but all the little tweaks have added together to fix most of that. Overall I found the balance and design fine, so what issues I had are related to a few specific levels/segments (ignoring the issues I've already reported on Discord). I played 7.0 up to Realm of Corruption and was on 7.1 from that map.

My main frustrations were in the Doom House+Realm of Corruption (though it wasn't as bad there) levels. The constant Demon Slith splitting into Demon Pupae who are only reasonably killable in numbers at that point with the Shitgun (which is kind of slow due to needing to not risk self-damage and also tends to throw survivors into obnoxious positions), or flares. The enemies spawning in behind all the time exacerbates that, as you're getting picked away at by the trash spawning behind while you're trying to deal with the trash in front of you. I found it a slog of grinding through the hordes of meat that took longer to die than they should due to your somewhat clunky tools for dealing with them at that point. Realm of Corruption isn't as bad because it only applies to the starting area (plus there's that Firestorm Generator), but it's similar there. The fact that you got the Hellgun a couple of levels ago and then your cool new gun doesn't work on the main enemies it would be great on doesn't help.

On that note it feels like the Shadow levels could come a little earlier as with a few tweaks they could basically be a tailor-made Hellgun tutorial; with a miniboss or two and a message to hint at the damage stack they could show you everything. I mean the bridge level already kind of does this (as far as the AOE goes) but honestly the Shadow levels in their current form could probably replace it or something.

Gauntlet of Pain was a bit repetitive in structure with the endless wave fights but I think I'm okay with it as a one-off style shift. Despite my issues with it covered in discord Doom Arena was the most impressive remake to me, and is almost a new level in many ways.

Those are my basic thoughts after finishing it; I might have some more later.

Good job with the new pawns/AI in v7! The Jolt Charger is a nice new addition, pretty powerful but still reasonably weak to certain attacks. However, a weird bug I've noticed in some DeathMatch SP games using this pawn (Monsterspawn, etc.) is that every now and then, when it kills other players, those kills go to the last player that either attacked it or were killed by it (I'm not sure which). I'll see if I can get a video of this happening some time this week.

This is a total shot in the dark but I wonder if it's due to a specific section of the code for the pawn in the TakeDamage() function. I tried looking for this line in the source code for other entities and it only appears here, and in some decorations - couldn't find it in other pawns: